


Humanity As We Know It (Is Different)

by matterly



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Ellie needs to chill her raging feminine hormones, F/M, Gen, Joel needs to check her out more, Joel's Coffee O-Face, Libraries are romantic, Zombie Killing Dorks, coffee is worth a million ration cards, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1801501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matterly/pseuds/matterly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere between Boston and the Fireflies, things get muddled up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Humanity As We Know It (Is Different)

**Author's Note:**

> Whoa. First fic in this lil fandom. Not my first fic overall, but my first on this account. I have a side-account (thewinterpunk), where I keep all my socially-acceptable fic. This, however, is not socially acceptable. 
> 
> Don't like? Bitch about it to me in the comments. 
> 
> Against-all-odds like it? Yell about it in the comments.

Surviving (to a certain degree) an apocalypse of epic proportions was nothing compared to watching Joel take a cold bath in a nearby stream. 

Sure, Ellie was supposed to be on sentry duty, but they both knew no one was this far in the woods. 

Joel, however, was definitely there. Ellie couldn't seem to take here eyes off of him. Her gun pointed the opposite way as she followed the slide of water from the crown of his head to the waistband of his boxers. His skin had flushed the same shade as her cheeks, although for very different reasons. 

It was late summer, sunshine trickling through the thick trees, but the almost-river refused to warm up. Icy water lapped at her toes as she stood on the bank, sand digging into her bare feet. 

Her body still hummed with chills, having only taken a quick dip not fifteen minutes ago, but it quickly flashed hot as she watched the thick muscles of Joel's back. 

Her attention had drifted more and more during their country-long trek; from keeping her eyes peeled for runners and the next Savage Starlight to the way Joel sometimes rubbed his beard and hummed a quiet tune late at night over a small fire. 

He was a mentor, a transporter, nothing more. Right? 

'Right' she thought before averting her gaze to the trees beyond. 

Time passed, trees rustled in a soft breeze and ever-so-slowly, Ellie noticed the silence. 

Silence wasn't unusual in the world she lived in, people werd lost in a soft grief. But, no, the splash of water on skin and grumbling in a deep baritone had ceased to exist. 

When Ellie turned back around, nervously chancing a look, Joel was nowhere to be found. Her toes felt cold and she was sure it wasn't because of the water. 

"Joel?" 

Nothing. 

Against her better judgement, Ellie waded in. The almost-river reached to her knees and it send cold shocks up her legs. She waited. 

"Joel?" She asked again, moving gingerly forward. The river came to a sharp bend just ahead of where Joel had been standing. "Joel!" 

He had taught her, a long time ago, that raising her voice was a bad idea. But this? This was a desperate situation. 

While she had been fucking daydreaming about him, blushing to her boots, Joel had disappeared. He was probably off being the tasty meal of a Clicker or hunter fodder. 

Or, a small part of her supplied, he took his chance and left. 

She trudged onwards, sweeping her modified shotgun left and right, around the curve of the bend. 

So much for hunter fodder, she thought smartly. 

A dry pile of clothes was left on the floor beside Joel. Joel who was still wet and shivering and putting on yellowed socks, completely fine. Old man was just going deaf (and a little senile, probably) in his old age. 

She made her way back and stood stock still in the same place as before. Her shoes even lined up with the dents she had left before in the bank.

She practiced whisking while he got dressed and tried very hard not to think about thick arms and coarse hair. 

Heh. Very hard. 

\---

Supper was a quiet affair. 

Ellie was acting was different, Joel had noticed. 

Where she was usually bouncing with excitement over canned peaches and her own fork, she was now stiffly picking at the juices. Here foot moved lazily in a circle from its prop on a log. 

"Joel?" 

It was the first time she had talked to him all evening. She had been silent, off in her own world, as they trudged through forest before. She hadn't even complained when he'd sent her off to find firewood. 

"Yeah?" He replied, voice thick. 

"D'you think we can find a library?" 

Lord almighty. Give me strength, he thought. 

He sighed around a mouthful of warm pineapple slices, trying to explain to himself why it was a bad idea. 

"Yes." 

She eyed him steadily over her can, trying to find a catch in his answer. It was just too easy. 

"Can we go in it?" 

Fuck. 

He stared back at her, taking in the copy of Savage Starlight she had found in a truck, read a thousand times over. He noticed the deep circles under her eyes, a mirror image of his own tiredness. He noticed the burning hope, slowly dying. 

"We'll make it quick." 

Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and the squeal of excitement made it all the better, really. 

\---

True to his word, somewhere between Boston and the Fireflies, they found a library. 

It was run-down like everything else, glass potted through and cracked paint. But it was a library, tall and proud. 

Ellie, in her excitement at seeing the faded sign that read 'Community Library', grabbed a hold of Joel's hand and bodily dragged him towards the double-doors. 

Her failed attempts at pushing and pulling the unlocked doors were a healthy source of amusement to Joel. After a good few minutes of standing back and doing absolutely nothing to help her, he stepped up to the plate. 

They were heavy. Oak, probably. He had to put his shoulder into it, groaning when the rusted hinges finally began to move. 

Ellie liked to think her contribution to the entire ordeal was worth something, but it was clear it was Joel who worked the doors open. Her thin muscles had nothing on his force. 

She was pretty sure he had managed to open them just by side-eyeing the hinges.

The loud squeal of the doors must have woken something in the library as they both heard a quiet clickclickchu- 

Joel was the first to pull his gun, safety off and aimed perfectly. Ellie followed close behind, her shotgun at the ready. 

\---

Joel wasn't fast enough, and immediately got slammed into the heavy door. A pop could be heard throughout the room as his shoulder jerked. 

Ellie froze at the sound he made. Halfway between a groan and an angry cry. She had never heard that sound come from him before, he had always been so strong. Able to handle anything life could throw at him. 

Her hesitance cost her, and she was barrelled into by a runner. Her shot went wide, spraying buckshot into the murky wall ahead. 

The smell that came from its mouth was the most foul thing she had ever smelled. It even beat Joel's socks. The screech that came from its broken vocal chords were deafening as it began to inch closer. 

Her gun was wedged between her arm and chest, keeping the runner at bay. She couldn't be infected, but she could still die. As something sticky hit her face from a rabid yell, she became acutely aware of that. 

"Joel!" Ellie wasn't sure what she was yelling for. To see if he was okay, to get help, protection. Everything was so fast and the nearest weapon was unreachable and she didn't want to die in an old library. 

She pushed back. Inch by inch. 

It was stupid to think she could win against something with no sense of self preservation, simply a collection of animalistic qualities. It was stupid, and she was a stupid little girl who continued to yell for help. 

"Kinda busy!" Joel yelled back, finally. 

She heaved and pushed, but the runner had her locked in. Neither was going to budge, for now. 

She looked into dark eyes, clouded over, and saw nothing of the human she saw reflected back at her. 

It was terrifying, to be faced with death so coldly. 

There was a last grunt from Joel, a loud 'pop' and a lighting quick throw of a shiv into the clicker's neck. It gurgled, and a sickening squelch sounded out before it died. For good. 

"A little fucking help!" 

"Yeah, yeah. I'm comin'." 

For some reason, the soft, unpronounced 'g' left her feeling a little bit more secure despite still being in a staring match with a snarling runner. 

He stepped close, dwarfing the runner and Ellie herself, and gave a gruff order to duck. She did so with a moment to spare as soft skull and even softer, rotted brain collided with the surrounding area. 

His bullet had gone clean through, embedding itseld in the wall where Ellie's head had been. Joel, himself, had not been saved and his front was dripping with greyed chunks of flesh. 

"Nice." She commented and let the runner go, sure he was now dead. It slumped between them, and Joel looked her over quickly before snorting. 

"Get your damn books, kid." 

Ellie did. 

As she was about to set off, she heard the heavy doors be pushed back in place. The faint sounds of clicking could be heard, and she shivered.

\---

Being locked in a library wasn't so bad, Ellie supposed. 

Sure, the screeches of runners and clicking of clickers put a dampener on the focus she had going, but she could deal. 

Joel was somewhere, singing the praises of a 20-something coffee machine that actually worked. She didn't quite get the appeal, coffee tasted bitter and made it hard to sit still, but Joel talked about it like it was made of ration cards.

Some books were burned, thick tomes of written word she'd probably never know, but most had survived. The trashcans filled with half-burned books around the large room had made her upset at first, witnessing a destroyed bit of history. However, the large amount left that looked incredibly interesting soon cheered her up. 

Joel had said a short trip, get what she needed and they'd be on their way. Right now, it wasn't looking like that at all. 

Thus, a small pile of books had found their way to her side. Everything from something set before even Joel was born called 'Pride and Prejudice' to a book called 'The Maze Runner'.

She hadn't made it to either of those yet, but if the clickers and runners kept up, she hoped she would get to. 

Halfway through something called 'Alice in Wonderland' -a book chronicling the adventures of a girl named Alice in a terrifying, fantastical world- Joel emerged with a half-washed cup. 

Steam rose from it and the look on his face, something close to that described in a romance novel she had once read, made her laugh. 

"Shut it." He grumbled, practically bouncing from foot-to-foot. He had wiped down his shirt but damp patches still remained. "I haven't had coffee in goddamn years." He finished with a well-pronounced gulp of the steaming liquid. 

Ellie simply pulled a face and went back to reading. The girl, Alice, seemed to have the most amazing life. With everything from Mad Hatter's to talking white rabbits who were apparently late. And best of all: No cordyceps. 

It was a cordyceps free book, as most in the library seemed to be. All those people, all those lives, they never saw it coming. 

Ellie, for once, was glad she wasn't born before, like Joel. At least she didn't truly know what she'd missed in life before the world went to shit. 

Her small life was still formed into neat piles, all squished into the QZ and Riley and her mother and Winston. She knew loss, but not that kind. She hoped she never would. 

"What does vor-pal mean?" Ellie asked some time later, the silence having only been filled with turned pages and soft sip-humms. 

"Uh," Joel wracked his brain, peering at the spine of the book in her dainty hands before replying roughly, "Deadly or sharp. This the vorpal sword?" 

Ellie looked up in surprise. "You've read this before?" 

"Loads of times." He replied, holding his mug close. 

The screeching outside had quietened but the sun had set by now. It would be stupid to head back out. 

"What did you think of it?"

"It was strange." 

Ellie huffed a laugh, and looked around, "Stranger than this?" 

This was normal for her. But she knew, for him, it wasn't. He still lived in the days of running cars and taxes and humanity. In this world, now, there was no humanity. Only different brands of savage.

"S'pose not." He said heavily. 

He watched the way she mouthed the word 'vorpal', working it around her mouth, and felt a warmth between his ribs. 

This was going to be one hell of a trip.


End file.
